PORT ANGELES — After nearly eight months of phone calls, meetings, rumors and speculation the Olympic League is back.
Since the Washington Interscholastic Athletics Association announced its plans to reclassify all 381 Washington high schools (and 19 non-counting schools exempt from postseason play), area schools have been in a scramble to find a new league to call home.
For Sequim, Port Townsend and Port Angeles the music finally stopped on Wednesday with all three schools sitting next to each other in the newly formed Olympic League.
“The process was full of fits and starts,” Port Angeles athletic director Scott Brodhun said of the numerous meetings and talks that went into finding a new league alignment.
Port Angeles had been reclassified from Class 4A to 3A after the Dec. 5 announcement, while Sequim was knocked down from Class 3A to 2A.
When Port Townsend shifted from Class 2A to 1A in the original reconfiguration, it appeared that all hopes of a Sequim, Port Townsend and Port Angeles Olympic League had been crushed.
Yet, after recalculating the numbers after several schools challenged the enrollment numbers, Port Townsend was bumped back up to Class 2A and the Olympic League was back on.
The three schools will join Bremerton, Olympic and Peninsula from Class 3A and Klahowya and North Mason from Class 2A to form a 3A/2A multi-classification league.
Brodhun said that there is a distinct possibility that three more schools may join the league on the next two-year reclassification cycle: North Kitsap and Kingston when the Poulsbo school splits, and Bainbridge.
Kingston would more than likely be a 2A school while North Kitsap and Bainbridge would join as 3A institutions, Brodhun said.
Port Angeles and the rest of its 3A brethren will compete against each other in football for a 3A league title, while Sequim, Port Townsend and the other 2A schools will have a separate 2A league crown.
The rest of the sports will have own league titles to be fought for between all eight schools, Brodhun said.
What remains to be seen is what will happen to Chimacum, which is one of only four Class 1A schools in the West Central District 3.
